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3 main options that acknowledge group identity in the urban arena Political (or physical) separation Two-tier federated governance Consociational local government Although they are not mutually exclusive, these three options run the gamut from least to most inter-ethnic cooperation.

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BRUSSELS (BELGIUM) Complex institutional accommodation Linguistic and nationalistic Dutch speaking Flanders to north; Francophone Wallonia to south. Brussels in the contested middle. Creation of an officially bilingual Brussels Capital Region (BCR) Directly elected regional parliament for Brussels region chosen from candidates put forth by each of two main linguistic communities and Parliament decisions require a majority in each language group. “Regions” and “Communities” “Communities” are non-territorial and exercise their legislative authority over cultural, educational, and health matters within linguistically determined geographical boundaries.

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In Brussels, bi-communitarian public authority, the “Common Community Commission,” responsible for implementing cultural policies of common interest Two linguistic community-specific public authorities—the Flemish Community Commission and the French Community Commission--implement policies of the respective Communities in the Brussels Capital Region Language borders, “oil stain”, and “iron collar”

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MONTREAL (CANADA) Boundary drawing, multi-tier government Linguistic (Francophone vs. Anglophone) and Nationalistic— largely Francophone central city of Montreal contrasts with more bilingual and English-speaking communities elsewhere on Montreal Island Multi-level reform of Montreal government— both consolidation and decentralization Since 1996, reorganized metropolitan-level government amalgamated local governments in the urban core decentralized some political power to boroughs.

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Creation of 27 boroughs (arrondissements). Boroughs are viewed as a key ingredient of the urban reforms because they “preserve a place for the expression of local distinctions” and thus made the larger municipal and metropolitan restructuring more politically palatable. Decentralization at the local level as set up for secession? “Demergering” Tensions inherent in amalgamating (and in decentralizing) power in a binational urban area marked by linguistic and cultural contestation.

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JOHANNESBURG (SOUTH AFRICA) Transitional power sharing, boundary drawing, metropolitan restructuring Legally enforced segregation white, black, and ‘colored’ residential areas of Johannesburg and townships. Consociational negotiations and power sharing used as effective transitional devices on the way to eventual majoritarian democracy Transition-period Johannesburg ( pre-democratic elections)– process negotiated by officials of the old regime, black political leaders, and non- governmental organizations. Use of boundary drawing and metropolitan government as social justice mechanisms

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Metropolitan scale as a focal point for local government transition negotiations, and use of metropolitanism as a means to integrate and transcend old local authority boundaries that had separated races democratic election-- ensure white minority representation during the transition period; ease the eventual change to majoritarian democracy.

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BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND) Third party intervention, impotent local government Nationalistic and religious divide– Protestants (Unionists / Loyalists) Catholics (Nationalists / Republicans) "Direct rule" midst sectarian conflict from 1972 to legislative power for Northern Ireland was held by the British House of Commons Obstacles by impotent local city councilors, whose relative lack of power freed them to be extreme in their interactions with government 1998 “Belfast Agreement” transfers day-to-day rule to a new directly-elected Northern Ireland Assembly, in which Protestants and Catholics have shared power– decisions require concurrent majorities within both unionist and nationalist camps. The Belfast Agreement called for comprehensive review of local governments in Northern Ireland. A “Review of Public Administration”, initiated in 2002, called for the existing 26 local councils in Northern Ireland to be reduced to seven. Local power-sharing?

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BEIRUT (LEBANON) Urban and national power sharing rigidified 18 confessions officially recognized, with Maronites, Orthodox Christians, Druze, Shiite and Sunni Muslims being main antagonists/ competitors. Power sharing necessary and successful in early years of country, but now more a roadblock to needed political evolution and maturation in the country and city. Political “confessionalism” allocates political power among the various confessional and sectarian communities according to each communities’ percentage of the overall population. The Lebanese National Accord signed soon after independence in 1943 used the national census of 1932 to assign political positions and shares of parliamentary seats to each religious group.

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Prior to 1990, the ratio of Parliament representation stood at 6:5 in favor of Christians. In 1990, at the end of the civil war, this ratio was adjusted to 50/50. Estimates today about 60 percent Muslim. City of Beirut Confessionalism most clearly runs up against demographic realities. Newly emergent urban Shiite Muslims have been met with systematic political and economic exclusion. Instead of urban social and economic dynamics spawning new more urban secular and cross-confessional communities, new urban politics was thwarted and rigidified into a “static consociational edifice” “Urban coexistence has emerged as the weakest link within the Lebanese model” (Salamey)

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SARAJEVO (BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA) Multicultural city unraveled Pre-war mixed ethnic population in 1991 of 540,000 Bosnian Muslims (40%), Bosnian Serbs (30%), and Bosnian Croats (20%) Early post-war years became an approximately 80% Muslim city of about 340,000 population. Sarajevo demonstrates the difficulty of sustaining the multiculturalism of a city after it has experienced the trauma of massive war aimed at its death. Local power sharing efforts sought electoral representation of displaced residents and provided minimum representation to minority groups. Protocol on the Organization of Sarajevo (1996) specified that at least 20 percent of city council seats go to Bosniaks, Croats, and to “other”. Minimum representation quotas.

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An initial strategy during early diplomatic efforts to counter possible ethnic claims on the city was to create a special status as a district under United Nations or European Community administration; a “corpus separatum” strategy. By the time of the 1995 Dayton Accord that ended the war, the idea for international governance or oversight of the city had been overtaken by the give-and-take negotiations of ethnic leaders. Peace- making paradoxically started processes that unraveled Sarajevo as a multicultural space amidst a fracturing state. Strategy to “reunify” post-war Sarajevo transferred certain Serbian-populated districts and suburbs into post-war Sarajevo city boundaries in effort to maintain the Bosnian Serb population within the post-war city. Yet, to be reunified within the city, Serbs would also under Dayton be simultaneously incorporated into the Muslim-Croat Federation. Resistance and substantial out-movement of Bosnian Serb population.

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MOSTAR (BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA) Fragmented city “War within a war” between Bosniaks and Croats. Post-war city contested and divided. Direct international administration of the city + Representation of displaced residents in municipal governments + Creation of a “central zone” to act as neutral buffer in post-war development. Six municipal districts, or city municipalities—three in Croat-controlled areas and three in Muslim-controlled areas. Early elections--the intent of the IC was that the holding of municipal elections would be a concrete and positive first step toward the city’s democratization and normalization. In effect, however, democracy’s early emergence in the city locked in obstructive ethnic elements that would then act to retard the city’s normalization.

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Central zone Approximately 1 mile long and one-half mile wide, a ‘‘central zone’’ in the traditional commercial and tourist center of the city was to be administered by an ethnically balanced city council and administration. The same forces that captured the six municipalities for ethnic gain also were able to warp and dismantle the integrative goals of the central zone. Unification decree, 2004 UN High Representative imposed through a unilateral decree the political unification of the city of Mostar. Mostar to have a single city administration for the entire pre-war area of the city. Limits the ability of the demographic majority to rule and imposes power sharing governance model.

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NICOSIA (CYPRUS) Physical partition Inverse of power sharing. Since 1974 a "green line" (wall) has physically separated the city into Greek Cypriot (south) and Turkish Cypriot (north) municipalities. Extreme physical partition has created separate and self-contained municipalities on either side of the barrier. This has resulted in each of the two urban regimes having a solid territorial base that has, ironically, set the foundation for some bridge-building in terms of functional planning. Such cooperation dependent upon local leadership. Recent promising signs

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JERUSALEM (ISRAEL/PALESTINE) Hegemonic control Israel exercises de facto hegemonic control over Jerusalem. Visible and stark inequalities in public services and living conditions. Recent political changes Between 1920 and 1948 a multicultural mosaic under British control. Two-sided physical partitioning between 1948 and 1967 into Israeli and Jordanian- controlled components. Since 1967, it has been an Israeli-controlled municipality three times the area of the pre-1967 city (due to unilateral annexation) and encompassing formerly Arab East Jerusalem. The international status of East Jerusalem today remains as ‘occupied’ territory.

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Corpus separatum proposal When the British Mandate period ( ) came to a close, there was a United Nations resolution that the city of Jerusalem be a demilitarized and neutral corpus separatum (separate entity) governed by a special international regime and administered by the U.N. The resolution was approved by the national leadership of the Jewish community in Palestine, and rejected by the Arab Higher Committee. Intense warfare turned Jerusalem instead into a physically divided city for almost twenty years, with Israeli west and Arab east parts separated by concrete barriers and “no-man lands.” Borough Plan proposal In the early years of contested Jerusalem under Israeli control, a plan was debated from 1968 to 1977 envisioning a single municipal government under dual sovereignty and the creation of semi-autonomous borough governments to manage local affairs in different ethnic neighborhoods.

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Camp David Summit 2000 Key elements of a Jerusalem proposal provided: Palestinian sovereignty over specified outer neighborhoods and over the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City, Meaningful Palestinian self-government in inner neighborhoods (although under Israeli sovereignty). Metropolitan Jerusalem? A metropolitan expansion of Jerusalem's borders would encompass within the new larger city approximately equal Arab and Jewish populations. There could then be two ethnically-based municipalities under a joint umbrella metropolitan council -- a “metropolitan federalism” of two sovereignties. Sovereignty issues within today’s Jerusalem would remain, however.

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BAGHDAD (IRAQ) Capital city of a federalist Iraq? (1) How to locally govern a city that has been segregated, cleansed, and sorted during war? (2) How to govern the city in a way that might hold together a country that likely faces some federalist devolution of national power to ethnic autonomous zones? Can Baghdad constitute a multiethnic capital district or zone that holds together a fragmented or federalized state? The stability of Baghdad has consistently been a key plank of American military and political planners. Protection of the Iraqi population in Baghdad is primary because it would allow breathing space to Iraqi leaders to achieve needed political reconciliation. “Localized security” through agreements at the local level, including with militias and former insurgents, would be a necessary complement and encouragement to national compromises.

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U.S. is attempting to establish a three-tier system utilizing neighborhood, district, and city council representation. Federalism and the city The 2005 Constitution allows semi-autonomous regions to be created through referenda out of one or more existing provincial governorates. One scenario is that there would be reconstitution of the country’s 18 provinces as three self-governing entities and reconstruction of Iraq as a loose confederation of these governments. Key centerpiece of any sustainable federalist arrangement for Iraq would be creation and protection of Baghdad city as a multi-ethnic capital district. Within this special district, power-sharing of local governance and protections afforded minority residents would be needed to avoid dismemberment of Baghdad into sectarian districts of autonomy.

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KIRKUK (IRAQ) Northern flashpoint Flashpoint of ethnic and sectarian conflict and a key element of national negotiations over the future status of the country. Will contested lands of Kirkuk join region of Kurdistan or remain with the rest of Iraq? Oil-rich region of ethnic contestation City of Kirkuk makes up about 90 percent of provincial population. Saddam Hussein displaced thousands of Kurds from Kirkuk and adjacent provinces as part of his “Arabization” plan. Hussein also gerrymandered borders by detaching four Kurd-majority districts from Kirkuk province. Today, there are three provinces currently fully under authority of the Kurdistan Regional Government; however, the regional government claims in whole or in part four other provinces, including Kirkuk. Provincial elections in 2005 produced a Kurdish majority in Kirkuk province (26 of 41 seats).

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Normalization Plan The intent of national legislation is that there is to be “normalization” process to include the re-integration of the four detached districts, followed by a referendum (by November 2007) to decide whether the province would become part of the Kurdistan regional government. Efforts have been underway by all sides to create demographic "facts on the ground" in advance of the referendum. Kurdish negotiators have proposed a binding political pact between the leadership of the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish blocs to return the administrative boundaries of Kirkuk to the 1970 map. In July 2008, an Arab-sponsored plan was put forth to delay elections in Kirkuk province and city and impose a quota-based power sharing arrangement. This proposal further inflamed the situation and put in jeopardy provincial elections in all of Iraq.

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MITROVICA (KOSOVO/SERBIA) U.N. supervised reintegration or separation? Divided Serb-Albanian city of Mitrovica presents a critical challenge to the sustainability of the disputed newly independent country of Kosovo. City split between a northern Serbian part and a southern Albanian part. The population of the city in 1998 was approximately 82 percent Albanian and 9 percent Serb. Local self government United Nations Mission in Kosovo (Unmik) sought to promote self-government in Kosovo as a preliminary run-up to possible full independence. At the same time, Kosovo’s Serbs with backing from Belgrade suggested that self- government be based on a functional partition of the region so that minority Serbs could be assured of some protections and rights. Illegal parallel administration set up in the northern part of the city and supported by Serbia; Belgrade was able to stake out a de facto division of Kosovo.

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Mitrovica-- two strategies by international community: (1) Serbs in Mitrovica were offered substantial decentralization of existing municipal powers, plus various economic development incentives, if they participated in local elections. (2) When this failed, Unmik established in late 2002, with Belgrade’s cooperation, a special UN- administered area in the north, created a council of local Serbian, Albanian, and Bosniak leaders and brought local Serb police officers into the fold. Is this “reunification” program by Unmik legalizing a previously defacto division? Do they run counter to international goals of having Kosovo as a unified, multi-ethnic province? Tensions rose considerably after the Kosovo Assembly declared independence in early Soon after, UN forces were withdrawn from the northern Mitrovica.

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#2 Institutional Adaptation Even in the sustainable cases—Brussels, Montreal, and, sustainability does not necessarily connote stability of institutions and arrangements. Many of the fragile cases will likely need to undergo significant restructuring and experimentation regarding local governance structures. The Beirut case dramatically highlights the need for power sharing arrangements to appropriately adapt and evolve in response to changing circumstances. Experimentation possible with local and metropolitan government power sharing. Possibly more than at national level. Local governance more a power-dividing approach that “begins at the bottom” and creates diverse, numerous, and non-overlapping political bodies able to foster multiple and cross-cutting constituencies.

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#3 Cities as key anchors or flashpoints in national reconciliation All the combustible and many of the fragile cities can be major roadblocks and obstacles to larger national peace agreements and constitutional arrangements. If cities are left unprotected and unmanaged, ethnic antagonists who recognize the power of the city will likely submerge and fragment the peace-constitutive potential of the city in pursuit of their own group aspirations. Mostar, Jerusalem, Baghdad?, Mitrovica? Shared urban policies and institutions can set important precedents that positively shape long-term urban and political development. Brussels, Montreal, Johannesburg

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#4 City governance during national political transitions International agreements that stop war must be cognizant of the new ethnic geographies of local and substate governments Rush toward democratization at local level will probably not bring to power leadership needed to move a city toward stability and mutual co-existence. Two-tier governance utilizing metropolitan and local levels can be particularly useful during political transitions. Metropolitanism can be an effective mechanism not only during times of major political transitions, but also in more stable arrangements.

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#5 Paradox of local government reform amid inter-group tensions Fragile local governance arrangements must be able in the short term to produce tangible positive outcomes (jobs, services, safety) for there to be public acceptance of shared local governance. Only with such public acceptance can we be assured that these precarious city institutions survive and become key agents of inter-group coexistence and local anchors to national stability over the longer term future. However, in the short term, constraints on local democracy in terms of minority guarantees and shared power may make local government less effective in producing tangible changes in the city. Democracy at the possible expense of effectiveness / impact.